Closure
by moosemaster
Summary: Sparked by the letters of a broken Hawkeye, BJ starts to feel what he never felt all those years ago, while being tortured by guilt and memories of what could have been, what is, and what might come to be... (slight slash: BJHawkeye)
1. Chapter 1: Invisible Man

Right. Fanfic! I've noticed there's been a marked lack of fic-posting around, and so, being stuck at home for a while due to illness, me and my 15 year old arse have decided to kick into gear and get some writing done... I am very slow and extraordinarily self-conscious... and lack motivation. I need long feedback (either positive or constructively criticizing) and lots of it. I know, I know, I'm a needy creature, but `tis the nature of THIS beast.  
  
Anyway, this is the first chapter of an estimated 7 chapter story... It isn't a letter-fic as, although there are going to be letters, there are also going to be quelques retours-en-arrieres... flashbacks, if that's the word... longer than mere flashes, however.  
  
Don't expect anything fantastic, I mean, I'm only 15! And what's more, the Quebec educational system being what it is, I learn french in school, as opposed to english... or rather, they only REALLY teach french. Sure there are english classes, but they are few and far between and honestly, I don't learn a thing from them. I digress. But that's just the way I am. I major in digression. Right.  
  
So this is slash, sort of... yes... no... if slash is sex between two characters of the same gender, then no, not slash... but love... homosexuality... whatever. Read the thing for yourself, and please, give feedback. Otherwise I shan't be motivated to continue. Pathetic isn't it? Yes. Onward ho!  
  
(Oh, and I don't own the characters. Why do we need to put disclaimers? If I owned M*A*S*H and the characters that go with it, do you honestly think I'd be wasting my time writing shitty fanfic? I didn't think so.)  
  
Pairing: Hawkeye/B.J.(ish.. will be.. ish), Hawkeye/Trapper (briefly implied), Frank/Margaret (possibly)  
_italics_ = letter  
  
  
  
  
  
**CLOSURE, pt 1/7**  
  
  
  
  
_ Dearest Beej,_  
_ Greetings from Cove, Crabapple, Army Issue, (gee ma, I wanna go home) , and all her sons and daughters and her rain and fog and wet and cold and bigotry and racism and Frank Burnses. Ah, how war casts shadows on the sun. Alas and alack! Aye me, those rose-tinted glasses of home have aged and become... well, not so rose-tinted..._  
_ "Things do not change... we change," quote somebody. Yeah, yeah..._  
_ This place isn't the one I knew, but it's not like you can actually hear my heart breaking over the noise of the traffic. There's a shipload of rich Joes flushing out our lobster, all wearing bright shirts and cheap hats and filthy, baggy, stinking clothing (some of them I think must have raided our old wardrobe)... about two-thousand people here now in Crabapple Cove, and paved roads and two+ story buildings and I can't even find the hill where I used to go sledding, and got lost trying to sniff out the house where I grew up (if those are the right words, har har). And that was two years ago! How time flies when you're not bobbing for brutality in the melting pot of everything horrific and... Jesus, I've got to stop this. Two years, and still..._  
_ I'm sorry that I didn't write you sooner... it's been hell. I guess it's no big deal that I lost my practice. I couldn't operate without my bones melting into my patient and my sanity trying to eat its way out of my skull if my life depended on it. Oh, and did you know I can't eat chicken anymore? Or be around babies? Or stomach blood? Or cry?_  
_ Beej, I need to escape this place. It's not a comfort... it's as if the Cove is a reminder, proof that everything has changed, and I don't want it to. I need stability, familiarity... I'm lost in my own town, lost in my own head. I'm going to travel abroad (please no puns, I'm trying to be maudlin here)... visit Sidney, maybe... Col. Potter, Radar, Father Mulcahy, Margaret, Klinger... I honestly don't think I can handle Charles, Frank, the then welcome antagonists of this little `trapped-in-war mode' world I'm slumming around in. What about Trapper, perhaps...? I can't imagine... to see him... we were... well, you know what we were all too well. And I apologize for bringing that up, I know how uncomfortable it makes you... Can I visit you, perhaps?_  
_ I need closure._  
_ Snax and pax,_  
_ Hawkeye_  
  
_P.S. My father called me Ben the first time I saw him after... it all... I didn't know who he was talking to. I still hear shelling at night._  
  
_P.P.S. Rereading this, I realize that it is rather bereft of funnies. What can I say... like all great (you know I kid) writers, I just write what I know._  
  
  
  
B.J. gently sets the letter on the night stand, beside the framed photograph of Peg and Erin making daisy chains in the sunshine on a sweet summer day; over the picture of himself with Him... with Hawkeye the Irreverent. B.J.'s eyes rake over the lanky frame in the photograph --lying loose and frameless (just the way Hawkeye would like it) on the dresser and fading with age, dug out of khaki cloth with old memories-- the casual drape of an arm over a shoulder, the barest shadow where a fingertip brushed against his chest, creasing  
his jacket. He's still there, in Korea; Hawkeye, lost...  
He feels Peg's breath on his ear as she whispers that Hawkeye can wait for tomorrow, that B.J. ought to tell Erin a story before she falls asleep, so he does. Erin's eyelids flutter shut to the tune of a war story, with a gallant doctor named Hawkeye and his trusty sidekick named B.J., and how shining Hawkeye in armor saves nurse after nurse from the perils of boredom. She feels the rumble of his voice, the warmth of his words, and the peace of his heart as he talks to himself about the man who was so flip at a glance, but so little to most... a word and a grope and he's gone.  
Two years, and not a word.  
That night B.J. dreams of an invisible man lost in a minefield in Korea, and the only proof that the invisible man was there were his footprints in the dirt.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
To Be Continued...  
  



	2. Chapter 2: Language

  
QUESTION: I've done some writing for other fandoms (very little mind you), and for the Harry Potter story (incomplete, like everything I've done on FF.net), two chapters, a couple thousand words long, I got about 14 (I forget the exact number) reviews. For the Star Trek, Enterprise fic, 7 chapters long with about 11 000 words, I got 86 (!!!) reviews... See, I'd love more reviews for this too, and not praising ones. Reviews that criticize constructively! Anyway, all this goes to say REVIEW! And a huge thank you to **Katie B.** for her review!  
  
PAIRINGS: Hawk/BJ (ish), Hawk/Trapper (in mention), Frank/Margaret  
  
NOTE: all of the 'flashbacks' are after Margaret's engagement to Lt.  
Col. Donald Penobscott (swoon? Not if I can help it, and believe me,  
I can).   
  
  
  
  
  
CLOSURE pt 2/7  
_  
  
  
  
  
  
Dear B.J.,  
Seeing Sidney has been... therapeutic. Oh, the suppressed memories it unearthed... I almost _pity_ Frank Burns for all the grief we gave him. I'll have to speak to Sid about that one... not healthy. It gives me warm fuzzies just thinking about it, though. Oh, good times. Remember? How could you not..._  
  
  
***********************************  
  
  
"Major Houlihan." Franks tray clattered against the table as he plunked himself down, jowls quivering as only Frank's jowls could.  
  
"Major Burns."   
  
"Hey Frank!"  
  
"Good morning, Frank!"  
  
"What about us, Frank?"  
  
"Yeah, Frank. Don't you love us?"  
  
"Oh, go swizzle your sticks, the both of you!"  
  
"Can it, Burns, no one wants to listen to your lips flap!"  
  
"But Margaret, I-"  
  
"Can we try for some quiet? My breakfast is trying to speak..."  
  
"I agree with Pierce. Cut the flabberjabber!"  
  
"Yes Colonel."   
  
"Of course, Colonel."  
  
Everything was silent, but for the gentle slopping of breakfast on tray.  
  
"Hey, Beej, I think my porridge is invading the toast compartment!"  
  
"I _told_ you war was contagious. I think we ought to impose a quarantine for a possible warmongering virus."  
  
"We can start with Frank."  
  
"Oh, fish!"  
  
"And we were so enjoying your conversation, Frank!"  
  
"You see, Beej, it's his occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation bearable... don't you agree, Margaret?"  
  
"Oh!" Margaret huffed before stalking out of the mess tent, Frank scampering not far behind ("Margaret, Wait!").  
  
"Ah," sighed Hawkeye, smacking his lips, "it's always difficult to follow an outstanding speaker. Fortunately, I don't have that problem this morning. What say you, B.J. to following me to follow up? Or follow down? Anyone? Aah, and thank _you_ , ladies and jellybeans, for being a wonderful audience, but my limo awaits!" And Hawkeye swished out of the mess with B.J. in tow, leaving Colonel Potter, head in hands, to contemplate the half-life of his oatmeal.  
  
  
***********************************  
  
  
_ ... Oh, did I mention that I am sitting here practicing yoga, a cross-leggedy bit, and did I mention that my posterior has never known such discomfort? Oh, I can hear you laughing, Beej... Before I left him, Sidney taught me how to do basic yoga, and I swear, the first time I tried it I nearly broke. I drink, am violent, am spiteful and angry and yell and holler (sometimes even in my sleep). Sidney woke me once and I decked him. And so I must do myself an injury as I'm shown up by a pretzel... yoga... pft... whatever happened to conventional medicine? Probably the same thing as what happened to army intelligence, har har, Hawkeye, you crazy guy, you maverick you.  
Aah well, what can I say... every village has one..._  
  
  
***********************************  
  
"Heavennnnn... I'm in heavennn... and the gin burns so that I can hardly breeeaaath..."  
  
"Hawk, don't you think you've had a bit much?"  
  
" Too much!? 'Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine drunk, and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about him,' " Hawkeye drawled, voice heavy with raw gin.  
  
"Only an _idiot _ would think something so loony."  
  
"Tell that to Shakespeare, Frank," said B.J., as he inhaled his third martini, wincing as it ate its way through his esophagus.   
  
"Oh, I read all right... I read that that poison's going to make your liver rot!"  
  
"I'd like a doctor's opinion on that, myself, " said B.J.   
  
Frank sucked in his lips in frustration. "Well, I learned that and boy, I never drank a drop after... not that I did before, no, let me tell you, I-"  
  
"Me," interrupted Hawkeye with and air of experience in his voice, "well when I read 'bout the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."  
  
"It's true, Frank. I had to feed his books to him through a straw!"   
  
"Ooh, youuu... de_generates_!" blurted Frank as he prepared to storm dramatically out into the Korean night, fumbling blindly in his cubby for a flashlight.  
  
"If it weren't for the sake of the army," Frank orated, "I'd make sure you two lousy-"  
  
"Surgeons, Frank?" interrupted B.J.  
  
"You two lousy-"  
  
"Lovers?"  
  
"Livers?"  
  
"Two lous-"  
  
"Really, Frank! If you have something to say, by all means shut up!" said Hawkeye through the bottom of a glass, swilling the last of the gin. "Now leave us alone and go bother Margaret!"  
  
A gust of frigid air and the flimsy racket of the Swamp door was Frank's parting shot, one of his better ones, to be honest, remarked one of them through a haze of gin ("Woah, Hawk, you're three and a half ahead of me!"). The two lapsed into an inebriated silence, Hawkeye staring morosely into his empty glass, B.J. gazing in drunken contemplation through the screen, out into the silent compound.  
  
"Hey, Hawk, did you notice anything strange at breakfast today?"  
  
"What, besides the food?"  
  
"Yes, no, yes, besides the food," B.J. insisted with broad sweeps of his arm, nearly shattering his glass against a pole. "Really now, with Frank and... and Major Houlihan giving him the cold shoulder."  
  
"Well, what other kind of shoulder could she give him?"  
  
"Nonono, I think there's trouble on Paradise Island, Hawk."  
  
"How would _you _ know? We're stuck here in Korea!"  
  
"Yeah yeah. C'mon, Hawk, lets go do a little," B.J. steadied a bombed Hawkeye, who swayed as he struggled to put his coat on, "do a little bird watching."   
  
The door shivered slammed into its frame, buffeted by the winds of a Korean winter.   
  
***********************************  
  
  
_  
Sid also says I'm bitter. Well THERE'S a guy who'll never get cancer of the brain. I went to Korea, right, and get a bit of a taste for the native tongue (in all ways one can taste the tongue), right? A couple of words; drink ox woman pain... But those hairless kids, they go to the field hospitals and learn a whole new language; dysentery frostbite typhus trenchfoot pneumonia cyanosis battle fatigue heartache, and if they recovered from those, then they're sent out to teach them to the enemy! Slathered in parasites... rot setting in (the worst of it in their eyes)... How does Sidney expect to cure my memory of that? _   
  
  
***********************************  
  
  
  
See B.J., his wife soothes, stroking her husband's neck, Hawk'll be all right. He's just fine, see, darling? But B.J. worries, and wonders why he does so.   
He remembers Hawk screaming out in his sleep for while, sleepwalking around the compound, how he was just the same old delinquent when he woke up, but how his mind tortured him so when there wasn't anyone watching to control it; every scream of pain that B.J. heard tear itself from Hawk's throat... every silent tear that escaped before it could be batted away with a casual brush of a hand... every broken complaint, shrouded in dark humour and snide comments. And B.J. heard them, and saw them, caught Hawk in the act of falling apart and gathering the pieces before anyone could notice, too caught up in his whirlwind of witticisms to notice the fraying edges.  
Smokescreen.  
B.J. never talks about Korea in the day. The day is for living, and being safe at home, surrounded by youth free from mutilation, and love free from affairs, and family, or at least, a different version of it. But when night falls, oh when night falls...  
Words flow freely at night.   
At night, B.J. brushes his teeth, washes his face in scalding water, and reads his two letters from Hawk until the paper becomes soft like skin. He tells his wife how lucky he is to have such a beautiful woman by his side, and such a gorgeous little girl, and what more could a man dream of, Peg? I love you, you know. And he goes to tell his little girl a story, and Hawkeye, the silly goof, comes to stay for the night in Erin's and her father's dreams. But he's always lgone when they wake in the morning.  
Daddy, the one about Frank an'... and his birthday fight!  
Birthday fight? But you heard that one last week!  
Erin nods precociously, eyes shining.  
Aah, yes, you have good taste m'dear, and Erin giggled. His daughter, she loved to laugh. B.J. told her her story  
It was another day in Korea, in that awful awful war, and Major Frank Burns was pestering Klinger for some tapioca pudding. Where's my pudding, he wheedled, because you know how Frank liked to wheedle, right sugarbun? And, of course, he wanted to join us, but when he did, he took Igor's pudding! But it was full of flies! You should have heard Hawk laugh... he has the best laugh. It was-  
-high 'n' silly 'n' contagious, almost fememin, but gen'ine, finishes his daughter with love in her eyes.  
Yeah, genuine, and her father sighs and goes on to tell about their mock fight, and Hawk's prickliness, and Erin falls asleep nestled in a room warm with love for someone; for a man who only lived for them both in Korea.  
  
  
~ ~ ~  
  
  
B.J. slides between the sheets with a soft groan and a sigh, flopping back into the pillow. After a vicious battle versus death, he figures he ought to grab as every wink he can manage before the next truckload comes in. A warm hand caresses his shoulders, massaging his taut muscles, and he arches his back into the hands that suddenly seem too fine, too smooth, and he stiffens, biting back the name that had drifted, unbidden, to his tongue.   
He tries to shake himself out of his daughter's bedtime story, return from Korea, and so he whispers, Peg. Suddenly being home is a reassurance, and he buries the tearless sobs that are building in his throat and turns to love his wife instead of his dreams.  
  
  
  
  
***********************************  
  
  
  
_ Oh, oh, barrel of laughs, diagnosis from Sidney: I've got 'bottle fatigue', hyuk hyuk. I told him if he didn't shut up, I'd shove him back in his vat of formaldehyde. It's coming back to me, Beej, slowly, slowly, but I'm not a lost cause. Now if only someone could convince me of that, I'd be made.  
  
Love,   
Your very own cuckoo without the clock,  
  
Hawkeye   
  
  
P.S. Like the drawing? In case you can't tell, it's a lobster in fatigues. Hey, I never said I was creative. Sidney made me do it. The devil! The devil! (I want to go home. But home is six years ago before I became me. I'm teetering here, Beej. There's only so much words can mean before they become just... words. Please tell me what I'm trying to say.)_  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	3. Chapter 3: Branded by Korea

NOTE: I am technologically challenged, and am having trouble replacing my previous chapter with a fixed one, so I shall just announce the change here: the flashbacks now take place in the SUMMER, so instead of Hawkeye struggling to put his coat on, he is now struggling to put his boots on, as it is now pretty goddamn hot out and who needs a coat in that kind of heat? Oh, and I don't thin kI'm going to make it up to 7 chapters anymore. Change of plan. Thats it, I think. Usual 'I don't own these characters etc.' applies.   
ANOTHER NOTE: In case you haven't figured it out by now, time changes are indicated by switching of tenses, present tense being, well, the present, and past tense being... wait for it... the PAST! Oh, what absolute genius! Oh, and big chunks of italics are part of letters, or a letter in its entirety.  
  
***Massive thank you to **crimson persephone** for a huge long glowing review via email and for her help in pointing out a few niggly changes that had to be made in this chapter. ***  
  
Now..... Enjoy!  
PAIRINGS: Hawk/BJ (ish), Hawk/Trapper (in mention), Frank/Margaret  
  
  
  
  
  
  
CLOSURE, pt 3/ no longer 7  
  
  
  
  
  
"Hey, Hawk, did you notice anything strange at breakfast today?"  
  
"What, besides the food?"  
  
"Yes, no, yes, besides the food," B.J. insisted with broad sweeps of his arm, nearly shattering his glass against a pole. "Really now, with Frank and... and Major Houlihan giving him the cold shoulder."  
  
"Well, what other kind of shoulder could she give him?"  
  
"Nonono, I think there's trouble on Paradise Island, Hawk."  
  
"How would _you _ know? We're stuck here in Korea!"  
  
"Yeah yeah. C'mon, Hawk, lets go do a little," B.J. steadied a bombed Hawkeye, who swayed as he struggled to put his boots on, "do a little bird watching."   
  
The door shivered, slamming into its frame.  
  
***************************  
  
Silence crowded the empty compound, but for the distant clicks of heels on gravel. The heat, humid and dizzying, bogged down the air as a drunken Hawkeye and his not-so-hammered sidekick oozed their way along the road to the tent of one Major Margaret Houlihan, happily betrothed to one Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Penobscott , and not-so-happily burdened with the affections of one Ferret-Face Burns.  
In the still of the Korean night, B.J. covered Hawkeye's lips with a large hand as they sat leaning against each other, ears hovering by the canvas tent-wall. The palm over his mouth, holding in whatever silliness that might have tried to escape, was uncomfortably wet as Hawkeye's lips, loose and slick with saliva, lent proof to his inebriated state. 'That's my bunkie.'  
  
***************************  
  
_Dear B.J.  
This is Margaret. Sorry to trouble you, but I think you might want... well... enclosed is a letter that I found crumpled In a wastepaper basket. I snooped, I know, but I worry. He is so thin, Hawkeye I mean. I know he has been writing to you, and I know that he has stopped for the past month or so. He talks to me.  
He didn't mention this in his letter- how he showed up at my door- but he visited Trapper. Or at least he went. I found him on my doorstep with the weight of the world in bags under his eyes. He told me, "I went to see Trapper... His wife said he was putting in a late night at work, sorting out some files with his secretary. I think that was the most 'himself' he's ever been. Glad to have gotten the best of it," and he just collapsed. B.J., no woman should be able to carry a six foot something man over one shoulder. I worry, B.J., but I don't know him. I only know the Hawkeye from Korea, and honestly, were any of us ourselves there?  
Margaret Houlihan  
P.S. I'll try to get him to write and sent you a letter himself. God knows he needs to do something besides mope around the house. I'm surprised he hasn't found himself a wife yet. He needs the shoulder (I can just hear him adding that the rest wouldn't hurt either, but maybe that's just a memory speaking. I thought he was asleep.)  
I'd write more, but Hawkeye is having another nightmare. I've got to go. Here is Hawkeye's unsent letter._  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
  
"Major Burns! You can't come traipsing into my tent in the middle of the night! If Lieutenant-Colone-"   
  
"But _Mar_garet, I-"  
  
"That's Major Houlihan to you!"  
  
"I was only trying to show you th-"  
  
"I cannot go accepting kisses from chinless, lipless, underdeveloped m-... OH! I'm to be a married woman, Major!"  
  
"So? I'm a married woman too, Margaret!"  
  
B.J. tightened his hand over a particularly ferocious bout of sniggering.  
A bead of sweat itched at his left temple, his clothing plastered to his skin, hot, sticky, as his ears buzzed in the heavy silence. Hawkeye's sweltering breath on his neck made B.J.'s head swim and his stomach churn with the intolerable combination of heat and alcohol.   
  
  
***************************  
  
  
  
_ Dear B.J.  
So much for everything getting better. Shit. Really, I mean it. Bucket of shit with a spoon. I have no substance. Really, shit, spoon = me.  
I visited Klinger. We met at Paco's. He wore a black shirt and tan pants. I missed the dresses and told him so. A man -his friend, maybe, I don't know, I was out of my element... bad water and drowning- asked me 'what are you, some kind of pervert', and Klinger said 'hey hey, _I'd_ have worn my earrings if my holes hadn't closed up'.  
Story of my life. Or somebody's, I 've lost track.  
Holes closed up, huh.  
I was in a miserable mood by then and offered to rip him some new ones- see what he could hang in there- yelled, tipped a table, planted a wet one on his anti-pervert friend and left.  
I do not suffer fools gladly.  
When I told all of this to Margaret, she said that I was a drama queen, and I said how dare she call me a drama (I don't think she heard me). She humphed and said I probably don't even feel ashamed, she said, I never do, she said.  
What, has Hawkeye become an animal so as to be immune to feeling? Is he wood? A rock? Truth is he bleeds as much as any of those pink hairless helpless kids laid open on the slab all those lifetimes ago, back home on the embers of hell... maybe he bleeds more than others. I think. How could he not? I don't think I know him so well. Know me. Basket case, invoking use of third person, not good sign.   
Right?  
Right?  
I stubbed my toe yesterday on a table leg and then stubbed my fist on the window. Margaret nearly cried, even though I told her I'd buy her a new one, with promises and all of that. But I don't think I apologized. And why did I feel like laughing when I thought of that?_  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
  
A muffled bumping and slamming of drawers filtered through the canvas. In a stupor, B.J. pulled his hand away from Hawkeye's mouth, glistening ropes of saliva stretching, breaking; he wiped it on his pants.  
  
"_Major Burns_, I'm trying to get un_dressed_!"  
  
There was a thump as Frank stomped his foot like a petulant child.  
  
"Tryin' ta cure peeping-toms a.. ag'in, Margaret?" a new voice put forth. Hand was clapped back over Hawkeye's mouth.  
  
"Save your breath, Frank. You'll need it to blow up your date later."  
  
"But Margaret, it wasn't me!"  
  
A cicada droned in the distance.  
  
"_Hawk, you idiot!_" he whispered sharply.  
  
"Huh wha?"  
  
"There's someone out there, Margaret, " a nasal voice whimpered.  
  
"Get out from under the bed, Frank, I _know _ there's someone out there."  
  
Footsteps. Hurried.  
B.J. pushed Hawkeye to the ground.  
  
"Beej? Wha..."  
  
"_Hawk, just can it for a minute._"  
  
"_Yes, darling_."  
  
The wood-and-screen door slammed open, slammed shut, (Margaret, is anyone there? and Margaret knew that there was, that there must have been, but she really only wanted to sleep, and no Frank, go back to your tent, nobody's there, Frank, go to sleep, while she really only wanted him gone) and B.J., lying on top of Hawkeye in the shadows, exhaled in relief as his long body shifted on the shorter one below it.  
B.J. didn't really know why it was so important to hide but it was hot, so hot, so humid.  
Hawkeye shifted beneath the heavy weight of B.J., and let out a halting snore. Fantastic, he's asleep. B.J. propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the slightly open mouth below him. A bubble of spit at the corner of Hawkeye's mouth burst with his next exhalation, a foul breath of raw booze wafting up to curl B.J.'s nostrils.  
  
"_Hawkeye, wake up!_" B.J. shook his friend gently.  
  
"Trap'uh... not now..."  
  
B.J. slung the dead weight over his shoulder as he staggered towards their tent.  
  
"_Let's get you back to the Swamp._"  
  
"But will y' still r'spect me in th' morning?"  
  
"Hawk, I never respect you," puffed B.J., struggling to haul his bunkmate back to their tent.  
  
"But... y'r girls... wife... Becky... Kathy..."  
  
"Grumpy, Dopey, Bashful, Hawk, what on earth are you talking about?" B.J. asked half listening, sandwiching Hawkeye between his body and the door frame as he struggled to open the door.   
  
"You know, Trap, you know..." Hawkeye murmured in a low sultry voice that simply melted into the Korean heat.  
  
"Trap? Trapper? Hawk, I'm B-"  
  
"Shh hshh, they'll 'ear us... and to be hon'st, blue discharge's nev'r bin my fav'rite color"  
  
"Blue dis-... come on Hawk, just wake up already. Anyway, that's only for..."  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
_ My antidepressant is running low. I'd go to the liquor store and get some more, but it might get together with the pills and and have some fun of it's own. I hate medicines. Rarely take mine. And how dare they think of wreaking havoc without me? I hate medicines. Doctors are stupid. Just let me die, dammit, and I don't care if I die happy or sad, with love or alone, so long as I die happy and with love. Doctors are also the worst patients. I can feel it in my bones, though... meds can only do so much- even less when you don't take them. Pisser.  
It's not always gloomy and raining on my parade, though. Sometimes it hails instead. Or sleet. Sleet is especially common these days. But fear not for me, rainy season approacheth once again.  
But it's not always that torturous. Sometimes I dream of Korea (the people, the place, the new beginning- and now I sound like a travel brochure-, though never the bloodbath) and I am deliriously happy, but then I wake up in the morning with the sickening sense of it all being over and never really having meant that much to anyone except for me.  
I confided all this to Margaret and she called me crazy and then I called her crazy for calling me crazy and that I should know, being crazy. Then I went to make her a cup of hot tea for her headache. She said she might as well drown herself in hot tea for all the headaches my living with her until This is over will give her. I gave her a kiss and she slapped me. I think I love the woman.  
This living arrangement is only temporary though, Beej... I'm giving myself a week. This isn't what I want. I need it, but I hate hate hate hate and feel like a child and want to throw a temper tantrum. I want to scream and explode and be held and cut the rope all that the same time. At times my anger is unstoppable. I need her right now, her strength. But even she's changed, now that she's given up on the army, on a husband, on All That which made her Bulldozer Margaret Houlihan._  
_ To be away from home is to be away from everything that made me, says Margaret, and to be away from everything that made me, when it dies, is my own death. I told her that it is the home that made me that breaks me now, and being away from it, in Korea, you know, (of course you know) is what broke and built me anew (oh how poetic), then shattered me by lasting too long, when I still need it to last longer. Or it hasn't ended. I mean, what I mean is that I am away from my roots (that made me) and away from them, I DID die, and coming back to the place that made me, I found that it had died AFTER me. But then, the me that the Cove made is left in Korea, and the me that was created in Korea, it is wandering. Maybe you'll choose not to understand this. God knows I tried. Margaret said I was rambling and told me to stop being maudlin.  
The dark reaches for darkness everywhere. How's that for depressing. I like it, though, even though I know I shouldn't._  
  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
B.J. jumped, pulling away from Hawkeye as though bitten. For all his impaired reflexes, Hawkeye still caught himself on the garbage barrel before he hit the ground.  
  
"Wha- hey, what am I, lunch?"  
  
B.J. backed off, air crackling between the two men, sizzling, focusing between his eyes, he was getting a headache... Hawkeye wasn't... he chased girls. He drank and chased nurses and kissed them on the lips and more and he liked it and did it over again and Father Mulcahy liked him and he made people laugh and never hurt children or B.J. himself but Hawkeye was... and it wasn't wrong but... it was Hawkeye and... and in the same tent and they showered together and Hawkeye would sling a casual arm over B.J.'s shoulder and ask him to dance and he always had a deceiving word cloaked in humor and never seemed to be more than a mouth and a set of hands with nothing more important to do than chase NURSES... and kiss them... and he had Carlye... but he had... he had others... Trapper... Trapper Trapper Trapper, who he was replacing and did Hawkeye look at him too and think about Trapper or worse, think about him, B.J., about...  
HOMOSEXUAL  
Like a cattle brand, red hot and smoking.   
HOMOSEXUAL  
HOMOSEXUAL   
So clinical, but real as anything ever was, and B.J. ran, leaving the... Him... since when had Hawkeye become a Him, an It? Frank was a Him, Jesus was a Him, and Hawkeye was Hawkeye... was a Him... was one of ... and B.J. ran away from Him, stumbling over his own long limbs, head spinning, dust and grit dancing in his wake.  
  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
_ Speaking to you next day here. Got a letter from Klinger-In-Pants asking me if I was 'really... well, you know.' I sent him back a blank sheet of paper with a gorgeous imprint of my very own lipsticked kisser. Margaret got mad at me for ruining her best color (that stuff's harder to put on than one would imagine). I told her every color was her best color, and tried to kiss her again. I write to you nursing a sore lip. This is what I need.  
Everybody seems to be after me, see Hawkeye Hawkeye how've ya been? Sometimes, when I see their faces, in the second before they start to talk and act, when they are just a face to a past, my heart vaults into my throat, and then plummets back to wherever it normally hides itself when it sees the change of the years in the people who were frozen before in my mind as ageless.  
Wear and tear of time. I should be a songwriter. Or a cliché. Oh, wait, I am one. I hope that that comment isn't supposed to bring me a great sense of purpose. All I feel is... uh, I'll get back to you on that one.  
And then they attack with their questions, B.J., see whether I am still the golden boy or if I have rusted; sink their teeth into me to see whether I am gold or copper. Let them bite. They will break their teeth either way.  
Margaret, I think, is reading over my shoulder but I refuse to turn around and call her on it. It's what she expects. Ah, you trickster, you contrary munchkin, you, silly Hawkeye... everyone loves you, everyone wants to know you, stand in your shadow to feel the sun on their faces... Margaret says I get more letters these days than Santa Claus. I remind her that I WAS Santa Claus once upon a time, but in reality it's because I know where all the bad boys live, har har.   
'I'Il stop talking about it. No, I haven't forgotten about you and how you feel about Things Like That. I wonder where good ol' unsuspecting Margaret would stand if she found out that... well...   
Um.  
Christ.  
_  
  
***************************  
  
  
Flies were wailing to the moisture beading at his temple. B.J. slumped, back against a rock, drawing out its coolness, Korea buzzing about him. Perhaps his palms were scratched from a tumble.  
They shared a shower. He let HIM do the hard-to-reach pats of his back. HE held his face with clinical gentleness while he vomited. Clinical, but contact. Oh, he knew it wasn't contagious. But that not-knowing, that... being friends with... and did HE think it was more? Never before had B.J. had Thoughts, but now he could picture, with a hot, sick swoop in the pit of his belly, he could picture slapping, arching, wet, rasping, sinking, deep, to think that his roomie, his -dare he say it (and he briefly thought how over dramatized everything was becoming, how Hawkeye he was, how if Hawkeye could transmit his personality, well...)- Best Friend was a blueboy, a pervert, a back-alley lurker, illegal. His best friend liked it up th- no, no, he couldn't... ?  
B.J. felt sick, a rank taste in his mouth, and wished it were only the alcohol. He wanted to vomit, purge himself of his own thoughts, but- he realized- this time there would be no one there to hold his head.  
Hawkeye was drunk. B.J., come on, you're a grown man. Cope. He was three sheets to the wind, talking a blue streak, load of silliness, our Hawkeye. He might not have meant it, no he didn't mean a word, to be sure. Nothing happened. After all, the last time he was this sloshed he bought Frank a new shaving brush as a peace offering. Didn't remember a thing in the morning. R + R. Spent the night recreating, didn't come back to the room until late, reeking of two types of sin (or three, god, three, and I joked about a woman).  
B.J., go back to the tent. Suck it in and go back to the tent. Nothing happened. You're no close-minded fool. Why does it bother you? What is wrong with you, man. Go back to the Swamp, B.J., nothing happened.  
  
  
***************************  
  
  
B.J., go back to bed. Suck it in and go back to Peg. It isn't happening. You love your wife. Why does this bother you? What is wrong with you, man. Go back to your room, your wife, get out of there, don't let him drag you down. You love your wife. Go love your wife. This isn't happening.  
Erin lets out a cry in the next room. She is having a nightmare. B.J. is only too glad to go and soothe his daughter of her demons, the demons that spring on her in her sleep, the demons that dance in her mind as things spiral out of her control. He whispers soft words into the darkness, stroking his wife's curls off of his daughter's forehead. Erin would understand this. But this isn't happening. B.J. gives his daughter with Peg's hair and nose and cheekbones his love, and means it with all of his heart as he tries to forget the long, warm, smoky, heavy, moving body smelling of gin and blood that never lay beside him. Erin's breathing grows steady and deep as only the breath of one deeply and peacefully asleep can, and, in the silence, B.J. leans his forehead against the cool metal of the bedpost and exhales.  
Absolution.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED...  



	4. Chapter 4: Degeneration

**NOTE:** Not mine.  
  
**NOTE #2:** I haven't been getting any reviews. I am a review whore. It's awful. The only review I received for the last long and 'happenning', though not as humorous, chapter was from a friend of mine that I had to plead to review. Is it because my story is rubbish? If that's the case, send me rotten reviews! I don't care! I would just like to know if the story is being read, is all. Sigh. **Please review... please.**  
  
PAIRINGS: Hawk/BJ (ish), Hawk/Trapper (in mention, or rather, in wishes as nothing happenned), Frank/Margaret_  
  
  
  
  
_**Closure, pt 4**  
_  
  
  
  
  
  
Dear Beej,  
Things couldn't be better. I feel as though everything is returning to normal, slowly becoming what it should be. I met with Klinger the other day, had a piss-weak beer. Others may complain about losing a leg, but I lost my taste buds to that war... seared off by the napalm of the alcohol world. No, not funny, I know , but ----- _a tear in the thin paper, too much scribbling, thinks B.J., try to hard to cover your secrets and you'll only rip yourself up. But perhaps B.J. is only looking too hard for something, for anything besides Hawkeye's false rewrite of 'It All'. And Hawkeye has got to know that B.J. can see through the words, even with the tear there.  
_ Visited everyone's favourite blonde bombshell of a Major. As much of a bulldozer as ever. How's Peg?  
Love,   
Hawkeye_  
  
And B.J. knows that Margaret came through on her promise, got Hawkeye to write to him. What did it take to sway the master of persuasion?  
And for some reason, It -something- pains B.J., a kick in the gut, like when he sees Peg cry or stares out of a window and catches himself thinking about jumping...  
B.J. thinks he loves Hawkeye.  
But everybody loves Hawkeye.  
Just like everybody loves Santa Claus, or everybody loves their grandfather who died before they can remember, or the comedian that made them laugh until tears ran and they forgot... (about?) everything.  
B.J.'s chest is tight as though somebody is sitting on it, pressing the air from his lungs. How much, he wonders, do ghosts weigh?  
  
  
Standing in a sunbeam, propped up against the counter, B.J. reads the letter again while making breakfast, one hand on the handle of the frying pan, the other with deft fingertips absently ripping patterns along the edge of the paper. He doesn't notice the smell until Peg's feet creak on the stairs and she asks him, squinting through the smoke, what's burning. He frantically crumples the letter into a pocket, eyes wide, as though _caught_, until he realizes that there is nothing to hide, it is just a letter... just a torn, scribbled, lousy lie of a letter. He waves, coughing, at the black smoke rising from the pan, while glancing at his wife, damned smoke making my eyes teary, and he keeps coughing and coughing. Peg rubs his back, and the smoke makes his eyes tear even more.  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED...  



	5. Chapter 5: Shift into Place

  
**NOTE:** Not mine.  
  
**NOTE #2:** I am a review whore. It's awful. Do you think my story is rubbish? If that's the case, send me rotten reviews! Do you think it is pure brilliance? Say so! Or lie! Anything! I don't care! I would just like to know if the story is being read, is all. Sigh. **Please review... please ... pretty please with all the toppings.**  
  
PAIRINGS: Hawk/BJ (ish), Hawk/Trapper (in mention, or rather, in wishes as nothing happenned), Frank/Margaret_  
_  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Closure, pt 5  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Dear Beej,  
  
I had a revelation the other day. Two revelations, actually. Bet you didn't know I was pregnant, much less with twins! Must be the record holder for the longest labor pains in history, five years and counting... _  
  
  
  
************  
  
  
The screen door swung back into the frame, the racket of wood on wood reverberating through the sickly heat, but B.J. shivered, the sweat cooling on his body, his resolution solidifying in his mind, it was just Hawkeye sleeping one cot over, no monster, nothing different or strange or dangerous.  
Without a thought as to how Hawkeye had been able to maneuver his way through the mound of filth to his bed without falling flat on his face (although he more likely than not DID fall flat on his face multiple times), B.J. silently padded across to his friend's bunk. His breath caught.  
Stale lamplight splashed shadows through the tent netting, staining Hawkeye's face a sickly yellow. A mass of dark hair spread limply across his forehead, faintly brushing his twitching eyelids as he lost himself in a dream. B.J. stared, took in every detail, the subtle yet frantic scurry of Hawkeye's covered eyes, Hawkeye's gaping mouth, the lips just barely moist, the darkened hollows of skin stretched tight over fine cheekbones, the roundness of the face, the delicate flutter of eyelashes, and B.J. realized for what shouldn't have been the first time that the man asleep there, right in front of him, was nothing but muscle and body fat and bones and blood and a heart pumping away and there was nothing magical about him. He was just flesh, a bag of bones, no pixie with a magic touch who entranced every woman he met.   
In fact, asleep, he was scruffy, dulled, so HUMAN, and B.J.'s stomach contracted. The magic was gone. In the sallow light, Hawkeye hadn't 'slept with' women, he 'had sex with' women, maybe he even 'screwed' women (although he didn't seem the type to just _take_). In that light, he seemed almost ill, frail, and so quiet. In that light, he was a human who didn't just pass through the latrines to humor the rest of the mortals around him, but who went there to clear his body of refuse... didn't heal people because it was just what he did, simple as that, but because he had studied and tested and pushed, and possibly even failed once or twice and spent the night weeping alone in a stark cold apartment with a bottle for company. He was human, and one day he would stop having sex and would wither away and no longer eat or shit or smile or fail or drink or laugh or make a face, and he, Hawkeye, that human being, would die. The thought brought a strange calming sense of comfort to B.J., which he immediately felt guilty for.  
B.J. could smell gin and vomit in the warmth of Hawkeye's breath, and he noticed vaguely just how close their faces were, and was pleased with how disgusted he felt with the stench, Hawkeye's stench. Disgusted. Disgusting.  
Hawkeye let out a snore, and B.J. started, tripping backwards, away from the sound and to his own cot.  
  
  
  
************  
  
  
_ I was furious with Trapper when he left. FURIOUS! The love of my life, leaving me just like that... a sick sort of poetic justice in it, though, the surgeon leaving the biggest hole unfixed. Trapper, the love of my life, he left me just like Carlye did, the other love of my life, and I hated him for it. How could one person do that to another? He MUST have known how I felt, I mean, he never asked any questions, right, so he must have known answers. And that's what I thought love was. I never told him how I felt. I never even kissed the man (and here you were all along thinking we were lovers. Pshaw). But he should have known anyway, after all, that's what friends do. They know each other.  
And then you came. Wife, kid, brains, and I knew I could never feel for you what I felt for Trapper. Whereas Trapper made me feel comfortable enough to let me forget he was even there, you made me think... about all that I was missing... like the love you felt for your wife. Often I felt something like resentment towards you, you being Trapper's replacement, though in all the wrong places, you having a Life, and in all the right places, you being YOU, not Trapper, replacing his hands in the O.R. and his smelly socks in the Swamp, but never... in me... something._  
  
  
************  
  
  
Each low and breathy moan that pushed through the heated silence strained B.J.'s ears as he attempted to catch its source, its meaning, through listening, eavesdropping inside someone's head, trying to decipher the dreams that aren't meant to be deciphered, that are meant to be kept secret, forgotten, to be held in the back of one's mind and away from the black and beady judging eyes of public scrutiny. B.J. was breaking and entering, and his gut wrenched at the breach of trust, but he had to know, had to have proof, had to hear Hawkeye call out the name of an actress from last night's movie or a nurse who he propositioned only that very day... but he only caught the sound of base desire, a human being dealing with the stress and the loneliness and fear in sleep as he would never do awake... or at least a human being _caught _ doing in sleep as he would never be CAUGHT doing awake.   
Lying in his cot, B.J. wondered at this, for isn't something more truthful if it is said or done in a moment when control is foreign and the subconscious holds the reins?  
Skin sliding over skin, quick surgeon's fingers pressing and rubbing just so, then a rough palm _pulling_, and a creak as hips twisted off the cot, towards and away from the sensation.  
Whose hand was it that was controlling Hawkeye's own? Nurse Baker's? Maybe even Carlye's?  
B.J. had never been religious as a child. It was just the way he grew up. But when he married Peg, devout, beautiful, kind, loving Peg who went to midnight mass on Christmas and to church every Sunday, he found no reason not to follow, if only to please his wife and partake in the atmosphere, the presence of those who had something to believe in. And often, he felt jealous.  
But now, although he was never a believer, he found himself praying. And of all the things in the cosmos that he might pray for, he didn't pray for his family or for world peace or to get the hell out of this godforsaken place, but for himself; God, don't let This be, don't make things change, please God, and I promise I'll-  
He felt deeply ashamed, and felt his face grow hot.  
The creaking grew frenzied, feverish, the breathing shallow, the guttural moaning higher and faster and B.J.'s stomach gave a sick lurch as the air suddenly froze.  
A strangled cry, a name, and B.J. closed his eyes. He would not sleep that night.  
  
  
  
************  
  
  
His entire body spasms as he comes, his white-knuckled grip of the railing being all that keeps him standing.  
Cold water courses over the length of his body, splashing off of his shoulders, swirling around his feet, and he slumps over, touching his forehead to the white tiling of the shower wall, his chest heaving in an effort to catch his breath. He whispers the name that he has cried merely seconds before as the rush of cascading water roars in his ears.  
And this is when you know you are lost and done for... when a past you would rather erase completely from memory comes back to haunt you, and you wish the haunting would never end, this is when you think 'I have a problem, Peg, god I'm so sorry, I wish none of it had ever happened', even though nothing DID happen. 'It's all in my head. I'm sure of it.'  
Except now... now it's in B.J.'s head in another way, no changing it. It's no longer Hawkeye's problem that he fears, it's B.J.'s own. Yet another cliché in the lives of the 4077th's troubled offspring.  
B.J. loves him.  
And although _everybody_ loves Hawkeye, it's not the funnyman or the healer than B.J.'s fallen for. If someone were to ask him what it is that he sees in the idiot (and God knows he's asked himself that very thing), he wouldn't be able to say; _isn't _ able to say, yet doesn't know that he'd want to be able to say... knows that he'd be able to rationalize it away, that dirty little secret of his, make it lose all of it's mystery, like the moment when the light fell a certain way and the shadows highlighted not a bright and cynical suffering man, but a skeleton covered with flabby muscle and ripe with glistening organs and tissues, back when mortar shells dictated shifts and clocks merely covered holes in the walls.  
B.J. loves Benjamin Franklin Pierce, but if asked how and when and why, he wouldn't be able to say. But doesn't that say it all?  
And in thinking all of this, he feels... ...  
...  
B.J. turns off the water and steps out of the shower.  
  
  
  
************  
  
  
_ And here is the major revelation number one, the big cheese, the mother load, the grand kahuna, the two scoops of raisins, the twinkle in the eye, the bounce in the step, the moment you've been waiting for... I've been waiting for:  
It's almost as though it's the other way around. Trapper, Carlye, though never the nurses, THEY were the replacements, your replacement. Carlye was mentally fulfilling, Trapper was... there... but who else but a lug like you can fill a size-thirteen gap in my life? Mind you, it hurt like hell when they left, but then, temporary fillings do ache when you lose them..._  
  
************  
  
When a patient was unable to walk or speak or move his arms or his legs or- and yet nothing physical was wrong with him, treating the soldier like an invalid only helped to cement the 'problem', possibly make it permanent. Assuring the patient that there was something wrong with him only helped to solidify the 'injury' in his mind.  
B.J. stands in front of the long bathroom mirror. Although the light of the ceiling lamp is soft, the cold silver of his reflection in the mirror prickles the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. Shivering, he stiffens his back and stares.  
Hair slightly grayer slightly thinner slightly cleaner, big forehead big nose and so many teeth, nick where his calculating hands slipped and brought up a drop of his blood and much humiliation (even though there was no grinning oaf to call him on it)...  
Mildly sagging chest where time took away youthful muscle and replaced it with a shaggy carpet of fur, long arms long legs, cock leaning off to the left, hair hair and hair, huge feel huge toes...  
Just as he left it. He was 'B.J., Plain and Tall'. His textbook could find nothing wrong. But in seeing all this, he feels... ...  
...  
  
He loves Hawkeye. He thinks it again, and every time he repeats it in his mind, it becomes more solid, a mental medical condition that ought to be squelched out of him, exorcised like the demon it was, cured... if only he knew where the doctor who could cure it was.  
  
  
  
************  
  
  
_ And my second revelation, and I'll write it out quickly and send this and run away, so that I can pretend it never happened, is this:  
There is a mystery about love, something even I can't try to doll up into a wholesome pretty picture, mostly because love is the ugliest thing I know of. It is incomprehensible, illogical, selfish, senseless, a royal pain in the caboose, and unspeakably hideous. Or terrifying. No one can explain it, why two people who are so different, as people are, can reach a level of psychological FULLNESS and completion so as to want to spend the rest of their lives together. No, no wait, love is beautiful, but people who say they are in love are wicked. Not bible wicked, but selfish, senseless idiots. Two people in love with each other shouldn't have to speak or have sex or touch, but just BE. Sure, sex is intoxicating and gives you a high that makes you feel on top of the world, even if that world is a stinking wet hole in South Korea, but you and I both know, as doctors, that it's just chemicals, a physical reaction to a physical action... what am I getting at?  
I will never love anyone who has had sex with me.  
No, no, that's not it; true, but not it. This is it (in more than one way, huh?):  
Just as you can't verbalize a goodbye, I'll never be able to say I love you, B.J.   
And now I'm running. Read that._  
  
  
************  
  
A frantic rapping at the bathroom door.  
  
B.J., are you all right in there? B.J.? Alright then... Hurry up, darling, breakfast is getting cold, oh, and there's another letter from Hawkeye for you on the table. Don't take too long in there, honey.  
  
  
************  
  
  
_Anger  
Denial  
Bargaining  
Depression  
Acceptance  
  
To hell with it all, eh Beej?   
Love, Hawkeye  
_  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
TO BE CONTINUED... 


	6. Chapter 6: Confrontations

**Disclaimer**: Not mine  
**Pairings**: If you haven't figured it out by now, tough cookies.  
**Desparate** **Plea**: I am a **review** whore. It's awful. Do you think my story is rubbish? If that's the case, send me rotten reviews! Do you think it is pure brilliance? Say so! Or lie! Anything! I don't care! I would just like to know if the story is being read, is all. Sigh. _Please **review**... please ... pretty **please** with all the toppings._  
**Note**: I nicked one quote (oh the shame) in this chapter, the 'tumor of rotten principles' bit, from Jack London.  
**  
Note #2**: I'm not sure if I'm entirely satisfied with the way this chapter came out. Perhaps this is because it's been so long since I've written a chapter, or because it is of inferior quality. Not having a beta, I am not sure how tofix it. I know it's choppy in places, but I don't feel as though it is emotionally intense or... or I don't know. At any rate, this story is nearing completion, so if you have anything to say about it, do not hesitate to review/email me. And anything you can say à propos de this chapter would be appreciated beyond belief. Anyway, read on.  
  
**UPDATE NOTE: Sorry for posting and reposting this bloody chapter so many times, it's just that there are some formatting and posting problems that are driving me mad. Oh, and while I'm at it, please please review... I worked dreadfully hard on this chapter... I just want to know if it's being read, and whether or not I should finish it... oh, to be insecure...  
  


CLOSURE, chapter 6: Confrontations (pt. 1/2)  


  
  
"Sir?" he cautiously prodded the swollen mound of bedclothes lumped in the center of the cot.  
  
The mound shifted and moaned.  
  
"Cap'n Hawkeye, sir..."  
  
A hand emerged to wave him off.  
  
"Radar, go bug B.J.-sir."  
  
"But I've got-"  
  
"And for God's sakes, do it quietly. I'm battling the hangover that ate the bronx, here."  
  
"-mail."  
  
The cot exploded as Hawkeye all but flew off the bed. Ducking a wayward martini glass, Radar dropped the mail and bolted.  
  
Hangover forgotten, Hawkeye sprang over to wake his friend.  
  
"Mmph."  
  
"Mail!"  
  
"Whuh?"  
  
"Me Hawkeye, you B.J., this Korea, mail!" Hawkeye leapt off B.J.'s cot onwards to new territory.  
  
B.J. pushed himself up onto his elbows and blearily rubbed at his eyes.  
  
"PIERCE! YOU ANIMAL!"  
  
"Well, Frank, it's how _my_ dog used to wake me."  
  
"That's bar_ba_ric!"   
  
"Speaking of which, here's this week's last month's copy of _Stars and Stripes_, Frank."  
  
"Gimme that!" Frank struggled into his pants, wiping his face with his shirt with brisk, military efficiency.  
  
"Well, Frank, since you asked so nicely..."  
  
A jeep honked in the distance.  
  
"So, Frank," asked Hawkeye offhandedly, "anything interesting today last month?"  
  
"Lot YOU care, unpatriotic simp, but while our boys were tearing down a village that was suspected to be a commie STRONGHOL-"  
  
Hawkeye waved him off with a dismissive wave of his hand.  
  
"Really, Frank, I said interesting."  
  
"It IS front page."  
  
"Well," he let out a yawn.  
  
"Well?!" Jacket on and buttoned.  
  
"Oh, yes, well, strip-searching and destroying in the name of freedom is all well and good, but if you aren't murdering in cold blood and pillaging, you aren't really living, Frank!"  
  
"You may have a point there, Pierce..."  
Hawkeye rolled his eyes towards B.J., who still propped upright, grinding his palms into his eyes.  
  
"See, Beej, and you can take this doctor's word on it, where others have hearts, Frank carries a tumor of rotten principles."  
Right boot, lips disappearing, jowls quivering.  
  
"I should know. I did his autopsy, after all... still don't know how he escaped the morgue."  
Dressed and brushed and livid, Frank stomped out of the tent to the mess for his morning cup of coffee and cowardice.  
  
"Like clockwork," said Hawkeye lightly, flopping down on his cot, tossing his new medical journal to the floor with a groan.  
  
"Speaking of pillaging and manslaughter, what on earth did we do last night? It feels like my brain's been shredded and used to reupholster the inside of my mouth, like the sandman's been using me for batting practice, like a machine gun manufacturer has taken up shop in my skull, like someone's been using my marbles as maracas, like... Beej?"  
Hawkeye stepped over to sit by his friend.  
  
"I know you didn't get a letter, but rubbing your eyes into oblivion isn't going to make anything but dots appear, you know."  
B.J. slowed his movements, head in hands, body quaking with every halting breath.  
  
"Christ, Beej, you're making even me look good. What's going on here?"  
A warm, gentle hand began to massage soothing patterns onto B.J.'s back, and he shot to his feet as though bitten, eyes puffy and red and frightened.  
  
"Who died and named _you_ as successor for King of the living dead?"  
  
"Hawk, go have breakfast. You drank a lot last night and..."  
  
Hawkeye cocked his head in confusion.  
"Beej, wh-"  
  
"... and so you're probably dehydrated and... and I need to get dressed."  
  
"What the hell is-"  
  
"I'll see you then, later, alright? Ok, Hawk? I'll..." He floundered, trailing off into tense silence. Hawkeye blinked.  
  
"Sure Beej, sure... I'll see you..."  
  


..........................................  


  
  
"... so after that, at about noon, I'm going out for coffee and cards with the girls, and there's a stew that you need just heat up-"  
"Peg..."  
  
"- for supper, which I should be home for at five-thirty, but I won't be home for three, so if you could pick up Erin from kindergarten for me, that would be fantastic. Remember, darling, don't you fret if-"  
  
"Peg, honey, I-"  
  
"Oh no, don't yo worry about me, after all, if I could take care of the family while you were in Korea, well-"  
  
"PEGGY."  
  
She froze, wide-eyed. Her husband never raised his voice.  
  
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to yell, I just..."  
_  
With Hawkeye, there was simply spontaneity and red and green and brown, mud and muck... and here before me is a light blue summer dress and thinking, planning... and why can't I be satisfied with the perfection of... of perfection... of Peg?   
  
"B.J., were you ever... you know..."  
  
"Was I what?"  
  
"Did you sin while in Korea, away from me?"  
  
"Sin how... which sin?"  
  
Caught in the cross hairs of her eyes, he continued, nervously, "What is a sin, anyway, really?"  
  
"Don't joke, darling, it's a serious question."  
  
A serious question. He had played that card before.  
  
He looked into her open eyes and kissed her._  
  
"B.J.?"  
  
"I'm sorry, I just... have the most awful headache."  
  
"My poor darling..."  
  
He kissed her, but found himself counting the flowers on the wallpaper, and found her eyes to be closed.  
  


..........................................  


  
  
It was midnight when he felt the cot sag, felt the warmth of another body by his feet.  
  
"I know you're not sleeping."  
  
"Why, should I be?"  
  
"B.J., just turn over and look at me, will you? You've been avoiding me all day, as though I were the bubonic plague or syphilis or Frank or something..."  
  
"Hawkeye, it's nothing, really, I've just," he sat up to face the other man, "had a long day. We both have. By back is sore and my feet are pleading for surrender.  
  
"Well, my body's been trying to organize a peace treaty for the past twelve months, but what does that mean anymore?" his hand moved to squeeze B.J's shoulder. Hawkeye had always punctuated much of what he said with touches.  
_  
And my body goes rigid. This needs to be resolved. This needs to be closed and done away with._  
  
A deep breath, as though it was to be his last.  
  
"Hawkeye, who are you, I mean, what are you?" They locked eyes, confusion warring with fear and determination.  
  
"Who am I? You need ask? Why, I am invincible, a crackerjack doctor, the miracle with ten fingers, a licensed skirt-lifter and bed-warmer, heartthrob extraordinaire, a dedicated pacifist..."  
  
"I'm serious." There it was.  
  
_ I'm serious. You're being cute. You're being evasive. You're being Hawkeye. I know what you're doing. Now you know I know. Does this frighten you?_  
  
Hawkeye's eyes grew steady and focused. To B.J., it almost seemed as though the man opposite him on the cot began to shrink in on himself, smokescreen. His back became that much more hunched, the shadows and creases and gray hairs became that much more prominent, the eyes became that much darker and expressive and ready to fight.  
  
"I don't know, Beej. What am I?" Almost taunting.  
  
"What, besides a living breathing mass of psychological double-talk that I sometimes wish I'd never met but ultimately can't imagine ever having been without?"  
  
"I'm gonna need to be a bit less sober if we're going to go psycho-double-talk-profound and all that..."  
  
"Trying to wash yourself away in liquor again?"  
  
"No, I just figured that since I spent both of my psychology classes smashed, perhaps reliving the experience will aid in my recounting anything I might have picked up during those times, amen" He stood and reached over to blow into a martini glass, fringe flipping upwards as his breath came back at him. "Speaking about sleeping through school, any idea what Ferret Face is up to? Hunting for truffles somewhere?"  
  
"That would be a pig, not a ferret."  
  
"Still works, though... actually, I met a pig once that-"  
  
_ How dare he try and talk circles around me, changing the subject, as though I were just another pawn in his little game?_  
  
"Nice try, Hawk."  
  
Insistant, "I'm not trying."  
  
"I can tell."  
  
His head snapped round, eyes wide and shiny and childlike, jaw dangerously tense. All the warmth fled from the room, the air suddenly both thin and heavy, burning hot like molten lead at the bottom of his lungs.  
  
"No, no wait, I didn't mean that. Hawk, I'm sorry, it-"  
  
"What," he snarled, "it just '_CAME OUT'_?"  
  
"It amongst OTHER THINGS!"  
Anger boiling in the pit of his stomach, B.J. had snapped. The effect of his words was like a punch in the stomach. The color drained from Hawkeye's face.  
  
At the terror on his friend's face, B.J. softened, calmed, a deep breathe, 1... 2... 3... 4...  
"It amongst other people," he finished.  
  
The silence stretched on until, his hands flying every which way, Hawkeye burst.  
"OH, oh! No, way, Beej... there is no way... sure he may SEEM like a closet case, but honestly, if you've ever seen the way he carries on with Hot Lips, which you can, by the way, every other night through the hole-and-mirror rigged by her tent, you'd never doubt Frank's tendencies or eat your lunch ever again, both of which are well worth the effort, let me tell you..."   
  
"Hawkeye..." and B.J. couldn't help but feel sadness, disappointment that Hawkeye even felt that he had to delude himself.  
  
"What?" Hawkeye questioned, his voice bright but his eyes frantic.  
And a strange thing happened. Hawkeye ducked his head, his boyish flop of hair hanging into his eyes, and the light shifted. He was once again human. And hurting. And fearful; afraid of exactly what B.J. was afraid of, fearing exactly what B.J. was about to lay upon him, and B.J. knew he wouldn't be able to interrogate him. But he had to know... had to understand.  
  
"Hawkeye," and B.J. knew. He knew that Hawkeye knew that he knew. The hollow vacuum of the moment rushing past swallowed them both.  
  
"Hawk, are you a... " he swallowed, nearly choking on the dryness, "are you a homosexual?"  
  
Hawkeye sat down weakly, trembling slightly, the impact of the moment gone, color leaking from the room. His shallow breathing, like a death rattle, scratched the silence with its ragged edges.  
"Jesus, Beej, I... I don't... maybe... look, I'm sorry. Maybe I should have told you, or..."  
  
B.J. exhaled explosively through his teeth.  
  
"You don't hate me." More of a statement than a question.  
  
"No. But I don't understand you either. I mean, the nurses, Hawk, and the girls in Tokyo..."  
  
"The thing about the vagina, Beej, is that, despite it being attached to beings of the sleek and streamlined variety, it is in fact built perfectly for members of the XY club to dock their steamboats in..."  
  
_ "Hawkeye_."  
  
"I'm sorry. No, it's just that, I'm not sure. I mean, why not? And maybe I'd find the right woman. I thought I might have. I keep telling myself that if it feels so... good... why can't I settle down with one? I'm not sure what I am, anymore. I don't what to be a... I want it to be easy, I guess. But I don't know, because that doesn't sound like me, does it? I can fight for others, but when it comes to fighting for myself..."  
  
"And what about the bible, Hawkeye? What about sin and immorality and perversion and burning forever and all of that?"  
  
"You know I don't really go in for that stuff, right?"  
  
"Yes but... but _what if_? Where would you be then? Aren't you... afraid?"  
  
"Not of Hell, no. Afraid of others, perhaps. Ashamed, yes, though I don't think I should be... but, you know, religion is funny."  
  
B.J. raised his eyebrows. Hawkeye continued.  
  
"I mean, what a threat: 'you're going to spend all of eternity in a terrible, terrible place...' Spending all eternity seems bad enough."  
  
"Spoken like a true nonbeliever."  
  
"Amen, brother. But I do believe... In this lousy excuse of a life that we're living right now, I think I can say that I've found something that I believe in: Karma. Because it's that much easier when there is a concrete something to blame, and even easier when that something is yourself, you know? Who needs Jesus to absolve you of your sins? Take care of them yourself, you lousy excuse for a human being. Although, come to think of it, being human is almost an excuse in itself. It's a pity there's no excuse for... God, what did I _say_ last night?"  
  
"Trapper."  
  
"Christ."  
  
"Gin?"  
  
"Make it a double."  
  
B.J. pulled back the covers and swung his legs out of the cot, conscious of Hawkeye's eyes on him.  
  
"Hawk, I'm a little... do you... that is to say-"  
  
"It's incredible, the Babble Brothers stuttering together. Any other time and I'd be laughing. Now what is it?"  
  
"Have you ever...?"   
  
"Depends on what. Why, have you?"  
  
"NO! I mean, no. I'm not _like that_. I'm not a homosexual."  
  
"I envy you for being able to say it. It's that much easier when it isn't you that you're labeling." He turned his head away from B.J.  
  
"Do you find yourself attracted to men even now?"  
  
"I don't know, wait, yes. Yes, I do. Now ask it... the million dollar question. I know you've got it kicking around in that head of yours, somewhere." He turned back, eyes boring into a B.J.'s.  
  
B.J. set down the two martinis and rubbed tiredly at his face.  
  
"Do you find yourself... attracted to _me_, Hawkeye? No, wait, I don't want to know. I do... but I don't."  
  
"Why would you? Or why wouldn't you?"  
  
"I would because I'm me and I'm curious. I'm reeling a little, here. And I'm still curious. I _wouldn't _ want to know because I don't know how I'd take it."  
  
"What can you imagine being so hard to take?"  
  
"Anything that's true."  
  
Hawkeye downed his martini in a gulp.  
  
"You gonna be alright, Beej?"  
  
"I guess. I mean, neither of us have changed, have we?"  
  
"No, we haven't. Beej, um... could you come here for a second?"  
  
And before B.J. could move, Hawkeye had stepped over to _him_, and engulfed him in a hug. It was warm, and B.J. could feel the moist, hot breath of the shorter man against his neck, the spastic fluttering of his heart against his chest. They swayed back and forth, standing, until B.J.'s arms jerkily wound around Hawkeye and held him tightly, returning the embrace, fisting in his clothing, and for some reason, B.J. felt his eyes stinging with tears. No, they hadn't changed, neither of them. But something was changing... and perhaps it would bring something beautiful to them both.  
  


..........................................  


  
  
He can't believe that he did it again. The anger from the war, the temper that would sink its teeth into him, grab hold of him, it hadn't left. Poor Peg had married a monster. A lying, sinning, violent, raging, lost and confused, in love with another man, demon of a husband.  
Erin, home from kindergarten, is taking a nap upstairs. The house is completely still, filled only with the wet echo of distant sprinklers and sounds of summer. He hears a child's laugh from a few houses down, and contemplates the empty hours ahead of him, until he has to face Peg. The air is pleasantly cool, and a breeze wafts though the room, rustling the drapes. And then...  
And then... a knock.  
A knock on the front door.  
Another knock and, seemingly from another world, the child laughs again. B.J. wonders, fleetingly, who might be at the door, and whether the far-away child might be laughing at him.  
He moves to grab the handle and throw open the door.  
For a moment, the sunlight is blinding.  
  
To be continued... **


	7. Chapter 7: Closure

Review, please, if you so wish to. This is my final chapter of this story, and it has taken more than you can imagine out of me to write it, seeing as how, though it may not be apparent, much of it is autobiographical and has been written during a rough period for me. I hope you have enjoyed it. Rest assured, my next story will be much lighter in tone and subject matter, this story having exorcised many of my demons, in a sense. In any case, please review. I'd very much like to 'go out with a bang', as they say. :)  
  
Not mine.  
  
Please enjoy.  
  
Ta.  
  
Moose  
  
Closure, chapter 7  
  
"Uh, surprise?"  
  
"You know it's not. And you look like hell."  
  
"Well I missed you too, Beej."  
  
B.J. stares, his mind unable to comprehend what is standing plainly in front of him. The 'who' is simple: Benjamin Franklin Pierce-   
  
_ '" What am I? I'm invincible, a crackerjack doctor, the miracle with ten fingers, a licensed skirt-lifter and bed-warmer, heartthrob extraordinaire, a dedicated pacifist..."_  
  
_"I'm serious." There it was. _  
  
- but... but the human being leaning against the doorjamb is nothing short of a skeleton, brittle-boned, a manic mop of wildly unkempt gray hair visible from under the battered cowboy hat, waxy skin stretched over the malnourished knots of muscle in his arms and the protruding cavern of his chest, like over the hollow cavity of a drum... wasted and loose, as though it were merely a poorly fitted jacket thrown on in a hurry...pooling in the bends of his joints, throwing his obvious illness into sharp relief...what is this? A joke?"  
  
_ (a living breathing mass of psychological double-talk that I sometimes wish I'd never met but ultimately can't imagine ever having been without...)_  
  
It has to be a joke, that the beggar with the demented silhouette is the same being as the prince of the long shadow that he remembers; draped over the still to give the utmost illusion of sheer, flippant, devil-may-care vitality (survival instinct) that he still dreams of in the most pleasant hours and chokes over in the most petrifying silences.  
_  
"I know you didn't get a letter, but rubbing your eyes into oblivion isn't going to make anything but dots appear, you know."  
B.J. slowed his movements, head in hands, body quaking with every halting breath._  
  
But there it is, he can see it now: life. Out of the sunken pits of Hawkeye's eyes flashes a spark of the old fire; a faint stirring of the past refusing to be smoldered, as though upon seeing B.J., in his Mill Valley, picket-fenced, daughter-and-wife-and-paying-job home, he suddenly recalls all the things in the world that still need to be laughed at.  
  
_ B.J.'s stomach gave a sick lurch as the air suddenly froze._  
  
In an instant B.J.'s eyes phase into focus and he trembles, a jolt of electric embarrassment shooting through his body as their eyes meet and B.J. is caught staring. Hawkeye watches him with a bitterly amused smirk which may be a grimace, hovering between brutal disappointment and impish insolence.  
  
"You haven't been taking care of yourself."  
  
"Well." Hawkeye sounds bored by the concern. _Aren't you smart_, he seems to mock.  
  
"Hawk, you of all people..."  
  
"Mmm?" he asks tightly with a dangerous tilt of his head.  
  
"You, as a DOCTOR-"  
  
"Christ, Beej... I'm only a doctor when I'm healing people... when I have the CAPACITY to heal. The rest of the time, I'm... well, CHRIST, LOOK at me!" he spits.  
  
"Like what you see?" he asks, throwing his arms outwards and turning in a slow circle.  
  
"Like what you see?" he asks, tugging hard at his shirt.  
  
"Like what you see?" he asks, rubbing violently at his head, hair coming out in clumps between his fingers, eyes blazing with anger or tears.  
  
"Like what you see?" he asks, wishing he could wonder about his friend's cold and frightened silence, but he can't because he knows only too well the reason for it. He feels it every day.  
  
"Hawk... Hawkeye... stop!" and B.J. grabs Hawkeye's arms, the feeble limbs putting up little protest. He stares into the blindingly blue child-eyes of the fighting man he remembers and chokes. "Hawkeye, good god, I missed you." And Hawkeye is surrounded by the dizzying warmth of B.J.-  
  
_the spastic fluttering of his heart against his chest, swaying back and forth, standing, until Hawkeye's arms jerkily wound around B.J. and held him tightly, returning the embrace, fisting in his clothing _  
  
- and one of them, either of them, perhaps the both of them, takes the one step to close that slight distance between them where the warmth resonates, pulling the lengths of their bodies together, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, hip pressed tightly to hip, and they can feel the embrace shift a gear into intense intimacy. A knot twists in B.J.'s stomach and his breath burns in his lungs. Either of them, perhaps the both of them, or perhaps solely Hawkeye, pulls away, perhaps with slightly more speed and force than necessary. B.J.'s knot twists tighter. He puts an arm around Hawkeye's shoulders and leads him inside, shutting the door behind them.  
  
....................  
  
"Time."  
  
Hawkeye slouches, glass of water in his hand, swirling it about, seemingly hypnotized by the tornado he has created. B.J. watches and thinks how strange it is, having this aged man sitting across from him and knowing that it is this aged man whom he loves, and knowing that he himself is an aged man, though neither of them are old... but they are aged, the both of them. And war-aged Hawkeye, in his rickety, delicate frame of bones and flesh that his spirit has yet to transcend, has just looked away from the fractured lights spinning in the turbulent waters of his glass and said the word 'time'.  
  
"What?" asks B.J., eyes tearing away from his friend's army-booted feet, wondering as to the relevance of 'time' as well as why he didn't ask Hawkeye to take off his boots at the door.  
  
"Time..." Hawkeye seems to be chewing the word around in his mouth, unable to discern whether it is salty or sour, discounting sweet without a moment's thought.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Time... it doesn't heal a broken heart... it just scabs it over."  
  
"And why is this heart broken?" B.J. is puppeteered into asking, and thinks he should know the answer to his own question, but he refuses to acknowledge any possibilities of...  
  
"Beats the crap outta me, Beej," and he downed his water in a gulp, his joints cracking.  
  
"Don't do this now..."  
  
"Well, come on! If ignorance is no excuse, what good is it?"  
  
"Then where did you ever deem yourself worthy enough to mock them all, the generals, Frank, the... the..." At a loss for words, B.J. is close to jumping out of his chair and throttling him. Love will do that to a person.  
  
"Look, I've given up. Who cares about any of that. At least," he sets down his glass with heavy finality and looks away, a habit he has when he is in the wrong, "at least, after one more year, we probably won't ever see each other again and all will be forgotten... what's more," he continues, picking up steam, "I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the sort of person I preach to." He sets his jaw, eyes gazing bitterly at the Hunnicutt family portrait wall.  
_ Wedding, baby, one-year old, two-year old, frightened grin at the airport before, haggard smile at the airport three years later, three-year old, four-year old, the happy couple...  
  
"... at least, after one more year, we probably won't ever see each other again and all will be forgotten..."_  
  
"Now that's just selfish." But at least it is Hawkeye, thinks B.J.  
  
Hawkeye exhales loudly, a wheezing sigh. "Wow, this is even more fun that premeditated hit and run with locomotives."  
  
"No kidding. Someday we're going to look back on this and plow into a parked car." B.J.'s joke, like all of the others that have been regurgitated over the years, falls flat in the stifling silence of the room.  
  
The clock ticks, the noise reverberating in the silence.  
  
B.J. cannot help but think that if this were another time and place, they would have laughed, and Hawkeye, instead of gritting his teeth at an invisible pain, would have been rhythmically throwing cards into a bedpan in an attempt to dull the tangible pain flown in chopper after chopper after chopper after chopper after...  
And if this were another time and place, B.J. would have made a pun and poured them both a drink, and they would wince as it burned all the way down, and they would snicker at each other's respective grimaces, and maybe fill Frank's slippers with yet another condiment or plot to antagonize Charles and then steel themselves for some good-natured suffering when Charles would get them back in his usual high-handed manner or-  
  
"-ish?"  
  
B.J. shook his head, and Hawkeye repeats, "Do you _really_ think I'm selfish?"  
  
"Yes," replies B.J., as though he has been waiting for that exact moment, that exact question, for all those years.  
  
"Yes," replies B.J., "but you call it love."  
  
"Um," says Hawkeye, "oh." And his child-eyes cloud over with confusion, but B.J. says no more, for he knows that Ignorance is no excuse.  
  
The clock ticks on.  
  
A muffled sliding and shifting drifts through the floorboards.  
  
"She's waking up."  
  
"I can leave, if you don't want her to know about me."  
  
B.J. smiles, unable to meet Hawkeye's gaze, unsure of whether or not he's blushing, and wondering whether or not he really wants his daughter to see... this.  
  
"My little girl. She's five now, you know."  
  
"I know."  
  
There was an awkward pause, a silence that threatened to strangle them both, already stealing their words away.  
  
"She knows you, Hawk," B.J. looks at his babygirl's portrait on the wall, " You're her knight in shining armor." He unconsciously twists his wedding band.  
  
"Well, I always DID have a way with the ladies." Neither of them seem to be hearing the other, their words swallowed by the shadows of things unsaid.  
  
"She loves you. I think she dreams of you sweeping her off her feet. She asks about you every night, Hawk." And B.J. wonders whether he is still talking about his little girl. "What am I supposed to tell her now? That her hero is killing himself? Huh?"  
  
"Does it matter? She's young. I'm only a story to her. She will live."  
  
"But you wont." Hovering between fact and uncertainty.  
  
"You have other friends. And your daughter will have other loves, real ones, not liars."  
  
He stands.  
  
"Where's the kitchen?"  
  
"You can have mine."  
  
Hawkeye pops the pill, swallowing the last of B.J.'s water before passing the glass back.  
  
"That one's for you, Beej, since you love me ever so damned much."  
  
B.J. jerks, glass slipping from his fingertips and crashing to the carpet. It refuses to shatter, the crack now running along the side barely noticeable.  
  
Hawkeye laughs and B.J. shivers.  
  
"Beej," coughs Hawkeye, choking on his own breath.  
  
B.J. wants to run, but he stays. The moment will pass, nothing is different, the moment will pass, nothing is different...  
  
"Hey, I mean, what's the point? Why stay? I just don't understand why you want to talk to me... to what end? I'm going to DIE, Beej. I'm ALREADY dead... why waste your time? It just seems to futile, so frustrating, dammit!"  
  
B.J. grits his teeth, his untraceable anger returning to him.  
  
"It is so inCREdibly frustrating, " voice unerringly level in a classic show of passive aggressive furious neutrality, "but not because of what you say, whatever the hell that means, but because of me, of how I see you... what happened to you... to me..."  
  
"Will I ever understand what that means?"  
  
"I don't know... I don't know if I WANT you to know."  
  
"Try now. Dammit Beej, I think I have a RIGHT to know. How do you see things?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Listen, Hunnicutt-"  
  
B.J. lets out a bark of angry laughter.  
  
"Listen, B.J., _how do you see things_?" Hawkeye jumps to his feet, only for his legs to give out under him. Springing to his aid, B.J. puts a hand under each armpit and hoists his friend to his feet again, with a whisper:  
  
"Goddamnit Hawk, I fucking love you is how I see things."  
  
A beat.  
  
A breath.  
  
"Fuck you, " he states.  
  
"Fuck you, B.J.," he wheezes.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Fuck you!" he spits.  
  
"Hawk, Erin's awake..."  
  
"Listen, Hunnicutt, don't play family man with me now... you have... no right."  
  
He begins to pace.  
  
"NO right... all these years... and now you want... you want me to... to... after these years and I thought _I_ was the liar." He turns to B.J.  
  
"How DARE you. How. Dare. You. Why not? Why not then? Why couldn't you have come to me before, when I was NEW, why now, when I am THIS? B.J., I don't want to cry... don't make me cry... don't... don't you touch me!"  
  
"I didn't think it could be. Hawk, I'm a slow learner. I didn't think that this could be... that _I_ could be..."  
  
Hawkeye isn't listening.  
  
"Don't you move me to pity... don't make me cry for you. I won't give you the satisfaction."  
  
"So you'll die instead?"  
  
B.J. sighs.  
  
"God, I'm so sorry, Hawkeye. Accept my apologies. Or don't. But... I do. I do love you."  
  
Hawkeye, leaning on the wall, shoots him a glare, venomous tears pooling in the corners of his eyes, chest heaving.  
  
"We can't." Like a child.  
  
"No... no?"  
  
"No. I won't."  
  
"But if we did..."  
"Which we won't, dammit."  
  
"... of course, which we won't.... but if we did, would you be able to live with your conscience, Hawk?"  
  
Hawkeye, still leaning, cracks a tight, tired smile, tracing the frame of a family photo with his finger. Turning to B.J. still grinning softly to himself, Hawkeye speaks.  
  
"I live alone. It's you, " he continues with a broad sweep of his arm towards the portrait wall, "who lives with his conscience."  
  
B.J. recoils as though hit, Hawkeye's verbal slap snapping him back to reality like a bucket of cold water in the face. The facts of the situation sting. He, a married man with a child, loves a man like he loved his wife... or loved a man like he loves his wife... or B.J. prefers not to dwell on the details. And this man, this man-child, this stubborn, opinionated, brilliant, blind, beautiful lost man, he has sequestered himself in a world in which he needs nobody, wants nobody; no friends to share his secrets with, no family to share the burden with- for he believes himself old enough to handle himself, though he ought to have learned from the war that age has no bearing in the grand scheme of things- no lover to bring to his special place, the place where he buries his thoughts...  
  
But then, why should he love? Where is the trust? When the book tells him that he is alive while the mirror plainly shows a corpse, why should he trust the book (post traumatic stress... depression... loneliness...) and its jargonistic babble? What does a live author know about writing a book to a dead man? And why should a dead man,, especially the dead man called Hawkeye Pierce, listen to the other book that says that if a man lies with another man as he does with a woman he is a sinner... the same book that glorifies love?  
Why love? Why follow the trend of infatuation and feelings and heartbreak when you were born to be a rule-breaker?  
  
_ There is a mystery about love, something even I can't try to doll up into a wholesome pretty picture, mostly because love is the ugliest thing I know of. It is incomprehensible, illogical, selfish, senseless, a royal pain in the caboose, and unspeakably hideous. Or terrifying. No one can explain it, why two people who are so different, as people are, can reach a level of psychological FULLNESS and completion so as to want to spend the rest of their lives together. No, no wait, love is beautiful, but people who say they are in love are wicked. Not bible wicked, but selfish, senseless idiots. Two people in love with each other shouldn't have to speak or have sex or touch, but just BE. Sure, sex is intoxicating and gives you a high that makes you feel on top of the world, even if that world is a stinking wet hole in South Korea, but you and I both know, as doctors, that it's just chemicals, a physical reaction to a physical action... what am I getting at?  
I will never love anyone who has had sex with me.  
No, no, that's not it; true, but not it. This is it (in more than one way, huh?):  
Just as you can't verbalize a goodbye, I'll never be able to say I love you, B.J.  
And now I'm running. Read that._  
  
"Hawk, I'm sorry about all that before..."  
  
"It's fine, Beej," he says, lowering himself painfully into his chair, spreading his limbs in a weary sprawl, "desperate times call for desperate shots."  
  
"Still..."  
  
Hawkeye prompts him with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Still, I... I'd like to kiss you, Hawk."  
  
"Yes. I know."  
  
B.J. can hear the unspoken 'me too'.  
  
"But...?"  
  
"But don't. You know it's not what you need, and don't laugh at the hypocrite."  
  
B.J. smiles at that.  
  
"Sorry Hawk, it's just, then you might have a legitimate reason to hate me, which would make things that much easier." He rubs a hand tiredly over his stubble. He doesn't shave as religiously as Peg remembered, and he makes sure to keep it that way.  
  
"I don't think I _want_ to hate you, Beej."  
  
"I think I want you to hate me which is selfish and cruel on MY part."  
  
"Why, though?" His eyes are wide and worried and afraid.  
  
"Because it might make it that much easier for me to try not to _love_ you, you simp." But B.J. knows that it wouldn't solve a thing... not a damned thing.  
  
"But I won't hate you... especially not if you want me to. I'm too much of a stubborn little kid for that." And the glint in his eye says that he knows that B.J. knows... that B.J. knows more than Hawkeye knows, and Hawkeye thinks that if he himself can die without knowledge of his own shortcomings, he will not die an unhappy man. And he also knows that B.J. knows better than that. Which B.J. knows.  
  
"I love you, Hawkeye," says B.J.  
  
Hawkeye meets B.J.'s eyes with a wry grin.  
  
And B.J. knows Hawkeye loves him too, and for B.J., that is enough.  
  
....................  
  
"Will you be in town much longer?" B.J. asks, eyes staring past Hawkeye, who is leaning in the doorway, hat in hand, to the sidewalks, where the lamps cast their thin shadows in the subdued evening sun and the children are running inside to wash up for dinner.  
  
"I can't make any promises, Beej, you know that." _ I can't make any promises, for death waits for no man, especially not for doctors._  
  
"I know that." B.J. is sick of knowing.  
  
"Oh, c'mere." They hug, B.J. breathing in great gulps of Hawkeye's scent, trying to memorize it, to box it up and keep it to himself for a time when there will no longer be the driving hope of 'maybe I'll see him again'. Hawkeye smells like medicine, the sickly, powdery smell of disinfectant and _hospital_, and B.J. nearly gags at it (the odor or the irony?), but he cherishes it all the same, his poison and his antidote.  
  
And tears paint their way down B.J.'s face, and he presses their cheeks together so that Hawkeye can share B.J.'s tears without crying himself.  
  
Their chests rub against each other with their unsynchronized breathing, and they touch each other's faces, and Hawkeye kisses B.J.'s cheek, the both of them coming to rest their heads on each other's shoulders.  
  
They breathe together.  
  
"Daddy?"  
  
And they spring apart, and Erin, barefoot in pink corduroy, watches her father with curious eyes, blue eyes, piercing and childlike, and B.J.'s breath catches in his throat.  
  
Hawkeye is watching him out of his daughter's eyes, his babygirl's blue eyes, his Hawkeye's blue eyes gazing at him out of her curl-framed face.  
  
And Erin turns her head to stare at the strange man who had been touching her father like mommy does -like daddy touches Erin herself- who had been hugging him. And although she has never seen a photo, she knows. She knows this man; she would know him if she saw him anywhere, no matter how old. She has been waiting for him for years now.  
  
She races over and throws her arms around his legs.  
  
And as she clings to him, she says one word: "Goodbye."  
  
And Hawkeye steps out of her embrace, and, placing his worn cowboy hat, still reeking faintly of gin, on his head, he tugs it respectfully, bowing his head.  
  
"Goodbye, Hawk," says B.J.  
  
Hawkeye smiles, and, limping ever so slightly, his knees bothering him, he picks his way over the toys and shoes and umbrellas strewn about in the doorway, and steps out into the dusky evening. They follow him outside and Hawkeye slowly descends the stairs. B.J and Erin stand at the iron railing as they watch him go down.  
  
A sudden gust of wind blows his old hat off his head, but he keeps on walking, tugging his thin jacket tightly around his figure. A tremor runs down B.J.'s spine, and he thinks, _There goes loneliness applauding itself all the way down the street._  
  
Erin tugs at his pant leg, and he tears himself away from Hawkeye to look down into those deep blue eyes.  
  
"That him?"  
  
"That's him, sweetie." And B.J. smiles wistfully, his tears cooling in the late-summer breeze.  
  
"He ain't much, ain't he, Daddy?"  
  
B.J. chuckles quietly, turning his eyes back to the retreating figure with the spidery shadow.  
  
"Oh, I'm not so sure," says B.J.  
  
And, as if on cue, Hawkeye pauses under a street light, as though illuminated by a spotlight that nobody but him can see, and springs high into the air, ignoring the pain, and clicks his heels, the waning sunlight surrounding his silhouette like a wreath of fire.  
He steps carefully around a dented garbage can and some gardening tools, and crosses the street, stopping once again in the warmth of the setting sun, his shoes sounding against the concrete as he jumps and clicks his heels a second time. No regrets.  
  
Erin hugs B.J.'s legs as she did His, and he bends to pick her up, the sun turning her hair golden, and she traces the tear tracks on her father's cheeks, her hand warm and alive, and B.J. thinks to himself: _ may this love extend itself forever._  
At the end of the street, Hawkeye clicks his heels one more time, and is gone.  
  
....................  
  
"Suture. Come on, nurse, suture!"  
  
"Easy Frank... don't take him seriously, nurses, -ah! Put some pressure on that bleeder there, will you!?- he's always like this the night of the full moon."  
  
"That was last night, Hawk," B.J. set up the proverbial board.  
  
"Oh yeah, well then, I guess this must be the final result. Congratulations, Frank, you're an animal. Hey, Colonel, can we shoot him and put him out of our misery? We promise we'll be humane about it." Didn't even pause for a second to look up from his work, keeping his eyes trained on the open wound in front of him.  
  
"Pierce! Colonel, did you hea-"  
  
"MORE CHOPPERS!" The phrase to silence all.  
  
"They can't do this to us. It's been thirty-one hours!"  
  
"They can, Pierce, they will, and it may be thirty-one hours more, so button up and buckle down." Nobody ever looked up from their work, perhaps to blind themselves to the number of wounded still left to be treated, perhaps to blind themselves to the reality of their situation.  
  
A crash of shattering glass.  
  
"Damn it, Beej, this is going even worse that I dreaded."  
  
"You should have dreaded more."  
  
"Mmhm... nurse, a new mask? I may have his guts in my boots but unless we want my upchuck in his innards, I suggest getting his blood out of my mouth. And can somebody close for me? Bigolow, can you close for me? Kellye? Margaret? Come on, somebody close for me!" Hawkeye scanned the room, wide-eyed, for somebody, anybody, to save him time and save another a life and save him the pain of realizing where he was and what he was forced to be doing. " Can anybody give me some damned closure here?"  
  
"Ah, but can you ever really have closure for something that will never end?" asked B.J., with a distracted glance towards the anesthesiologist.  
  
Hawkeye didn't answer, grabbing a cloth instead and wiping the blood off his face where it had seeped through the mask.  
  
"Next... come on, move it!"  
  
And, shaking his head, he gingerly snapped on a new pair of gloves.  
  
Fin  
  



End file.
